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“How To Destroy Writer’s Block”

What I learned several years ago was to push myself to write. By writing at the same time each day, even if it is for 15 minutes, I write. If it is not writing an article, screenplay, book, etc., but just writing, I write, at the same time each day. This approach to writing is vital to the professional writer. It is like professional athletes do before a practice or a game, they loosen up to reduce the danger to injuries. A writer must loosen up before they write, or they will experience an injury, some refer to as “writer’s block.”

I select something about which to write. A pen setting on the table in front of me, for example. I study the pen. I think about the pen. I ask myself, “What can I write about this pen for 5 minutes? I define the shape, the color, and the angle to the table the pen is laying. I define the metal clip on it. I define the steel tip on it I define the color of the ink in the pen. I note the name of the pen. I write about the pen in a Zen-like story form. I take all of these elements and put them together in a fashion that tells a story about the pen. The theme of the story, is the pen. The theme is what holds every story together, like the roots of a tree.

One can always write. The question is, how much brilliance does one have to write, when the mind refuses to give one anything to write? This is when the writer must take charge and write.

When one desires to write their article, screenplay, book, personal letter, business letter, etc., and has difficulty in getting started for the day, or night, or what have you, do a writing exercise such as I have described above. This warms up the mind to turn to what one sets down to write in the first place. Write only long enough to get the mind to working again, before you return to what you want to write.

And remember, anything anyone writes is brilliant. It’s just a matter of how the writer puts what they write together, that defines brilliant.

About Donald L. Vasicek

Award-winning writer/filmmaker Donald L. Vasicek studied producing, directing and line producing at the Hollywood Film Institute under the acclaimed Dov Simens and at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. He studied screenwriting at The Complete Screenplay, Inc., with Sally Merlin, daughter of the famed Hollywood Merlin family of screenwriters and writers, as his mentor. Don has taught, mentored, and is a script consultant for over 300 writers, directors, producers, actors and production companies. He has also acted in NBC’s “Mystery of Flight 1501”, ABC’s Father Dowling starring Thomas Bosley, and Red-Handed Productions’ “Summer Reunion.” These activities have resulted in his involvement in over 100 movies during the past 23 years, from major studios to independent films including MGM’s $56 million “Warriors of Virtue”, Paramount Classic’s “Racing Lucifer”, American Picture’s “The Lost Heart” and “Born To Kill” starring the Charles Bronson of Korea, Bobby Kim, and his internationally-known brother, Richard, who directed, Incline Productions, Inc.’s “Born To Win”, 20th Century Fox’s “Die Hard II” starring Bruce Willis with Rennie Harlan as director, and Joel Silver as producer, Olympus Films+, LLC’s “Haunted World” with Emmy-nominated PBS Producer Alison Hill, and Olympus Films+, LLC’s “Faces”, “Oh, The Places You Can Go” and the award-winning “The Sand Creek Massacre” documentary film. Don also has written and published over 500 books, short stories and articles. His books include “How To Write, Sell, And Get Your Screenplays Produced” and “The Write Focus.” He has been a guest screenwriting and filmmaking columnist for Hollywood Lit. Sales, Moondance International Film Festival’s e-zine, Screenwriter’s Forum, Screenplace, Screenplayers.Net, Screenwriters.Net, Screenwriters Utopia, Spraka & Kinsla (Swedish), Inkwell Watch, and Ink On the Brain. Writing recognition includes Houston’s WorldFest International Film Festival, Chesterfield’s Writer’s Film Project, Writer’s Digest, The Sundance Institute, The Writer’s Network, and the Rocky Mountain Writer’s Guild, Inc. Don completed producing “The Sand Creek Massacre”, a documentary film project that includes the completed and award-winning documentary short, a book, a classroom video, Interactive Media, a study guide, and a lesson plans. The film is being distributed by Films Media Group. Don is on the board of directors of the American Indian Genocide Museum in Houston. He is the founder and owner of Olympus Films+, LLC, a global writing and filmmaking company and a screenwriting volunteer on AllExperts.com. Don’s screenwriting agent is Robin Kaver of the Robert Freedman Dramatic Agency, Inc., 1501 Broadway, Suite 2301 New York, NY 10036, 212-840-5751.